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1877 monologue by George Robert Sims
"
In the Workhouse: Christmas Day
", better known as "
Christmas Day in the Workhouse
", is a dramatic
monologue
written as a
ballad
by campaigning journalist
George Robert Sims
and first published in
The Referee
for the Christmas of 1877.
It appeared in Sims' regular
Mustard and Cress
column under the pseudonym
Dagonet
and was collected in book form in 1881 as one of
The Dagonet Ballads
,
which sold over 100,000 copies within a year.
It is a criticism of the harsh conditions in English and Welsh
workhouses
under the
1834 Poor Law
.
As a popular and sentimental
melodrama
, the work has been
parodied
many times.
Opening verses
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It is Christmas Day in the Workhouse,
And the cold bare walls are bright
With garlands of green and
holly
,
And the place is a pleasant sight;
For with clean-washed hands and faces,
In a long and hungry line
The paupers sit at the tables,
For this is the hour they dine.
And the guardians and their ladies,
Although the wind is east,
Have come in their furs and wrappers,
To watch their charges feast;
To smile and be condescending,
Put pudding on pauper plates,
To be hosts at the workhouse banquet
They've paid for?with the rates.
[5]
?
Lines 1-16, as reprinted in
The Dragonet Ballads
(1879)
Synopsis
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The poem tells of an old
Devon
trader named John who has been reduced to poverty and so must eat at the workhouse on Christmas Day. To the shock of the
guardians
and master of the workhouse, he reviles them for the events of the previous Christmas when his wife, Nance, was starving. They could not afford food so, for the first time, he went to the workhouse but was told that food would not be given out ? they would have to come in to eat. At that time, families might be separated inside such institutions but his wife refused to be parted from her husband of fifty years on Christmas Day. He went out again in search of scraps but she died before he returned and so now he is bitter at the memory.
[6]
Author
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Christmas Day in the Workhouse
was for a time vigorously denounced as a mischievous attempt to set the paupers against their betters, but when a well-known social reformer died recently I read in several papers that he always declared that it was reading
Christmas Day in the Workhouse
which started him on his ceaseless campaign for old age pensions, a campaign which he lived to see crowned with victory.
?
George Robert Sims
Sims
was a
campaigning journalist
who, while young, had investigated the poor of
London's East End
.
The details in this ballad were perhaps not accurate, as the Poor Law regulations did permit old couples to cohabit and allow for short-term relief to be given out,
but its melodramatic and sentimental style made it very popular and such work made Sims a great success.
He went on to write detailed exposes of the life of the poor for periodicals such as the
Weekly Dispatch
,
The Pictorial World
and
The Daily News
, which had been founded by
Charles Dickens
.
Parodies
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Among the many
parodies
of Sims' ballad are "Christmas Day in the Cookhouse" (1930) by British comedian
Billy Bennett
, recited by a soldier in the 1969 film
Oh! What a Lovely War
;
[10]
"'Twas Christmas Day in the Poorhouse" (2000) by
Garrison Keillor
;
[11]
and "Christmas Day in Grey Gables", submitted by a listener to the
BBC Radio 4
's
The Archers
message board.
[12]
It was Christmas Day in the
cookhouse
, the happiest day of the year
[13]
Mens hearts were full of gladness, and their bellies full of beer
When up popped Private Shorty, his face as bold as brass
He said "you can take your
Christmas pudding
And stick it up your....."
Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
O, tidings of comfort and joy
It was Christmas day in the
harem
, the
eunuchs
were standing round
While hundreds of
beautiful women
lay stretched out on the ground
When in strolled the
bold bad Sultan
, and gazed at his
marble
halls
He asked "what do you want for Christmas, boys?"
And the eunuchs answered:
Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
O, tidings of comfort and joy
See also
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References
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Citations
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Sources
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- Connelly, Mark
(2012),
Christmas: A History
, I.B.Tauris,
ISBN
9781780763613
- Broadview Press (2012),
"George R. Sims: "How the Poor Live" (1883)"
, in Donovan, Stephen; Rubery, Matthew (eds.),
Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism
,
ISBN
9781770483538
- Higginbotham, Peter (2012),
The Workhouse Encyclopedia
, The History Press,
ISBN
9780752477190
- Kemp, Sandra
; Mitchell, Charlotte;
Trotter, David
(1997),
Edwardian Fiction: An Oxford companion
, Oxford University Press,
ISBN
9780198117605
- Moore, Tara (2009),
Victorian Christmas in Print
, Palgrave Macmillan,
ISBN
9780230623330
External links
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